If we get comfortable with not knowing, what happens next? How does this help us?

The benefits of not knowing are literally beyond imagination. That’s the point, you see? When we think we know, we create walls and a ceiling around our experience. When we step into not knowing anything at all, there are no limits.

Said another way, the only limits are in what we think we know. If you think you know that your mother-in-law is a person who will never accept you and with whom you can never get along, that’s what you’ll get. When you meet your mother-in-law from a place of I-don’t-know, you’re meeting her for the very first time. Even her judgmental comments are completely different when they aren’t bumping into your mind’s theories about her. You get to discover her fresh and new. Who is this character who makes those comments? How is this interesting, new experience? Before we were taught that there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to be, we just experienced life as it was. That’s the space of I-don’t-know.

This is getting philosophical, and I like it. Is there any way we can get not knowing ‘wrong’?

There are no true pitfalls in the I-don’t-know space, but there is one universal obstacle: fear.

Our mind, always looking for certainty and falsely equating certainty with safety, convinces us that knowing is safe and not knowing is dangerous. It can feel terrifying to not know. How often have you heard someone say they ’hate uncertainty’?

But here’s an interesting thing to consider. Is it uncertainty or not knowing that you fear? Or is it the scary stories your mind tells that you feel quite certain about? Perhaps it’s actually false certainty that scares us. Uncertainty, or not knowing, is open and free.

I suggest leaning into any fear that arises in the I-don’t-know space. You will likely discover some fear at some point, but as you lean right into those feelings you might be surprised at how quickly they dissolve, revealing wide open, not knowing bliss.

One Good Thing: get comfortable with ‘I don’t know’